City's proposed Jazz District back on track

Gerald D. Adams, EXAMINER URBAN PLANNING WRITER

Published 4:00 am, Tuesday, October 28, 1997

1997-10-28 04:00:00 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco's proposed $30 million Jazz Renaissance District is about to receive the fiscal shot it needs to start replacing garbage-strewn sandlots and empty storefronts with live music and movies.

Hopes for the project sank in March when Mayor Brown rejected a $7.5 million start-up loan to developers of a nightclub and multiscreen motion picture theater, the prospective anchor tenants for the four dreary blocks of Fillmore Street between Geary Boulevard and Eddy Street.

But Brown signaled his turnabout earlier this month in his state-of-the-city address, saying "the lower Fillmore Jazz District is now a go."

Taking its cue from the mayor, the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency is expected to make several decisions Tuesday launching the project's anchors: a proposed nine-screen theater, a 456-stall underground garage and a West Coast outpost of New York City's Blue Note, "perhaps the premier jazz supper club in the world," according to the agency's economic consultant.

The Redevelopment Agency Commission is expected to approve a program that calls for investigating two alternative financing schemes.

One would call for $6.35 million in public loans to leverage $30 million in private investment. The other would lay out $10.6 million in public loans to leverage $25.7 million in private money.

In addition, agency commissioners would authorize a conceptual design for the jazz club and theater and an urban design contract with architect Michael Willis & Associates for re-landscaping blocks of Fillmore between Geary and Eddy.

In reviving the project, San Francisco would be following a trend under way on Kansas City's Beale Street, in New York's Harlem, in New Orleans and in Memphis - places where African American jazz culture is being seen as an instrument of urban revival.

Encouraging the mayor and the Redevelopment Agency to follow that trend are letters of commitment that developer Charles Collins of WDG Ventures has obtained from both the Greenwich Village jazz mecca and AMC Theaters, operator of the Kabuki Theater four blocks to the north.

"According to our market survey, there's a high probability of success for the movie screens and a good probability for the jazz supper club," said James Morales, executive director of the Redevelopment Agency.

For several years, the empty Fillmore Street block had been seen as a site to develop low-income housing. But that proposal never materialized.

Over protests from those who wanted low-income housing on the block, the agency re-designated it for businesses.

In July, Economic Research Associates, the agency's consultant, forecast that the Blue Note could gross $29.2 million in its first five years. Together with the theater, which AMC would operate in conjunction with its Kabuki on the north side of Geary Boulevard, Economic Research Associates forecast that WDG's proposal would provide 228 permanent jobs for neighborhood residents, return $670,000 in taxes to The City and revitalize a dreary neighborhood.

Civic leader Leroy King, who has been the redevelopment commission's principal critic of the Fillmore jazz district proposal, said he would go along with the deal, despite past misgivings.

If the jazz district becomes reality, no one will be more relieved than Raye Richardson, operator of Marcus Books, which is now located on the northern, prosperous area of Fillmore Street. In the 1960s, when urban renewal meant

"black removal," Richardson said, her business had to be moved to another part of town for several years "to avoid the wrecking ball."

As for the jazz district, Richardson said, "We've been waiting for 30 years for something like this to happen."

During that time, "the black community has remained depressed," she said. "I hope this will have the effect of creating jobs for black people." &lt;